things I need to do asap:- buy decent jack stands that are lightweight, yet properly made (ie not supercheap rubbish and not ones that weigh a tonne either). Suggestions?

- tyres - suggestions? I need something for road and dirt

- dampners/springs/balljoints - again, suggestions on brands? I want to steer clear of noltec but can anyone recommend any brands that are available for 929/RX-4s? The last time I rebuilt a Mazda front end I had to use a combination of Roadsafe and TRW balljoints and the Roadsafe ones were useless.

It has a roll cage but this will be coming out as I don't like how the cross brace is positioned, I would be hitting my head on it. I'll also be refitting interior panels and carpet (if I can find them)

to do list:- pull out the rotary crossmember and refit a piston one- fit a 1800cc motor and 5spd- fit a standard diff- fit some trailer over-rider bars I have for the rear leaves- front end rebuild- rear dampners- find and fit wagon interior parts- find and fit some front panels and other external bits- rego it and do some events.

I also bought a parts car a few weeks ago, the shell is rotten but the front guards, grille, front apron and most importantly, the interior are in great condition.

I'm going to start swapping parts over this weekend.

Last edited by ewokracing on Sat Oct 12, 2013 11:47 pm, edited 13 times in total.

The racing seat, roll cage and other bits and pieces will be getting removed and a full interior will be going back in. The interior in the parts car is in fantastic nick. You can see that the windscreen and bonnet are covered in ATF. That's a long story that I will call "the great Ford Falcon transmission saga of 2009".
I've peeled the Selectmaz sticker off already as I go through a different business for my engine work.

Again, I'll be removing all of these stickers, same with the black number sticker on the door.

Castor adjustment blocks and the RX-4 engine crossmember. These will be removed and are going into a friend's RX-4 coupe.

Transmission tunnel and engine bay. Not too bad paint/rust wise.

Green and mean - the "pointy" front that will be going onto a friend's car. The wagon will get the early "flat" front off the yellow wagon.

It might get a rotary one day, but I've already got a rotary toy that is a shitload faster than this thing will ever be, so this is more for rallying and cruising.

Luckily it is basically a complete car bar the hubcaps (which I think the seller kept) and the log books etc.

The uncut dashboard and original radio where a big selling point

The interior is in excellent condition, with just a few warped plastic bits on the door handles (from Australia's harsh sunlight in summer) and a small tear in the load space headliner section.
Listened to the radio on the weekend. Acccceeeee!

Forgot to mention, the bonnet nearly fell off when I first opened it, which is a pity as I need one!

Basically I'll be taking out the whole driveline, the interior, keeping all of the panels apart from the bonnet, all of the trim bits and then cutting up the shell and sending it off to be recycled. It's a pity to kill another classic Mazda, but it is too far gone to save. (though it still drives, it just has no brakes).
I think it is possibly a 1 owner car as the signs are there that was well looked after, it even has Mazda ignition leads and it's been resprayed at some point - which is a pity as all of the original engine bay stickers are gone and I need to make copies of them - more about that later.

Me either, I think it looks shithouse and very 1980s. Even back in the 80's it still looked well, shit. hehehe. It is getting replaced when the proper flat front panels go on.

So, rain, winter and other stuff set me back a few weeks.

I wanted to spend at least one solid day on the weekend that has just passed putting the cargo area of the wagon back together and I just missed my goal, but I got a fair bit done anyway.

First up - a few weeks ago I took the rusty rear seat bracket and the fuel line covering plate to a friends place and wirestripped all of the rust. I wanted to get all of the rust on the covering plate as there was rust right over the connectors between the fuel lines and the fuel tank.

After getting rid of all of the rust, I tried some POR15 that a friend had as part of a kit. Apparently you can paint it over the rust and it doesn't need to be painted unless it is exposed to sunlight, but hopefully this stops any rust from coming back at all.

I also bought some new backing foam to go around the covering plate when it is screwed into position. It should stop any rattles as it is adhesive backed.

Foam in place

Covering plate back in position. I didn't take all of the original factory paint off as it was still good and there is the occasional brush mark visible but it will be under carpet so I'm not overly fussed.

Someone has run fuel lines all over the shop under the car so I suspect that I'll have to take this out again at a later date, but at least everything is looking neat and tidy for registration.

My other problem was these

The little plastic plugs that held the cargo area plastic trim in place. Lots of them either broke or were missing off the yellow donor car (and some were mismatching which makes me think the yellow car has been apart before).
I did a bit of research and looking and the company that made them, Champion, didn't seem to have a direct store so I had to go to Autobarn and Bursons.
So I lashed out and bought a few blister packs of different sizes along with some bolts and washers for the next step. The paint is for the bottom of the doors. (more info below).

So, carpet and tailgate sill panel are back in
Even the boss approves.

Cleaned and tidied where the back seat rests, routed some of the cabeling into its correct position

Sound deadening mat is back in

Next stop, bottom of the doors. This is the passenger side rear. It is full of 30+ year of gunk and grime.

I'm slowly drilling more drain holes in the bottom of the doors. I'll sand back the rusted areas and hit them with some anti rust spray and some paint.

The other problem that I wanted to knock over was the latches for the top half of the rear seat. Some moron had bashed in the pop rivet that located the back of the brackets
So I used new high tensile nuts and bolts and swapped over the brackets from the parts car onto the green wagon. I also fixed the strengthening bracket under the car in the wheel well as it was a mangled wreck.

So rear carpet and insulation is back in, fuel line cover is in, rear tailgate sill is in, underseat insulation is in, the doors are getting prepped and the big wagon plastic trim panels are ready to go in.

Next up is sorting out the fuel lines under the car, getting some engine bay parts powdercoated and sorting out the rear suspension as I've got the rear suspension bushes on the way.

Went OS for work for a few weeks and then made a quick 6,000k round trip to help a workmate pickup a motorcycle so not much progress has been made.

I've got under my spare parts car wagon and spent hours battling some kind of underseal that was sprayed underneath. I've also found that my parts car wagon has wider rear springs than what came out of the green wagon. That and things like different widths in replacement suspension bushes, rain, a chest infection and zombie flu have slowed things up, but I've got a few big updates coming soon.

I've made a mental list of things to do:
1. Strip the spares car of its chrome parts and other bits that I want
2. Get the spares car out of my driveway and either lob it at my friends farm or off for scrap
3. Get the motor painted up
4. Get the surface rust sorted in the green wagon engine bay, tidy up the wiring and drop the motor in
5. Sort out the rear fuel pump bracket
6. Get my suspension sorted in the back. Superpro bushes for the top of the Shackle don't fit, so they're going back, the other two bushes are on backorder
7. The mailroom here at work has lost my extractors, so I have to sort that out.
8. Cut some small rust bubbles out of the bottoms of the doors, gut the doors and add some drainholes
9. Refit the rear interior to see where I can put ancillary sockets to run a car fridge and battery charger
10. Sort out the RX-4 tailgate wiring
11. Source tie rod ends and front suspension bushes
12. Source either KYB or Koni shock aborbsers for all four corners.

Phew!

This was the white parts car off ebay with the dodgy brakes:

I nabbed the steel wheels and front grille.
It was 5 minutes from my house and I used to see it every day. Unfortunately the past owner drove it into the ground and it is pretty much only good for parts.

Other stuff:
Painted engine mounts. I'm leaving off the original sump guard as it is only very thin stamped steel. I'll be fitting an alloy one instead.

Painting up the grille screws from the white car. The yellow one had a mishmash of screws and bolts holding the grille on.

The plastic fuel pump cover that goes under the car. It was covered in the same sort of underbody sealant that yellow car was covered with (it came off the yellow car). Unfortunately it had started to peel off, so I bought a spray can of deadener and gave it a few quick coats. Hopefully this stops any rocks breaking the plastic.

Mocking up the fuel pump bracket

The boss checking my progress while I was checking my measurements for the umpteenth time

More checking

Voila. Took this off to work and the bracket is currently getting cut and drilled to suit in one of the workshops here at work.

The other job I had on the go was getting the crossmember and steering linkage out of the yellow parts car, along with the struts. The struts came out pretty easily and all I have to do now is rebuild the brakes and source some shock absorbers.
As for the front crossmember, one of the swaybar shackle bolts was rusted in and one of the crossmember nut/bolt was also rusted on tight (and smeared with sealant).

So to get to this stage

Older mazdas have 4 bolts passing down through the tops of the chassis rails in the engine bay. The threads poke out through the bottom of the rails and the crossmember goes over these and then a nut holds the crossmember on each bolt.
I cut the offending bolthead off

Used a bit of gentle persuasion and kind words beginning with F, C and A

Fought the grime and muck that had built up on the Pitman arm and Idler arm and undid the castelated nuts

The stubborn nut still attached to the bolt.

A few big hits with the hammer and then:

Slid the crossmember and steering out. I've started painting up the crossmember and I've got someone looking for new inner and outer tie rod ends.

Once the crossmember is painted, I'll give the green car's engine bay a quick tidy up, bolt the crossmember in and get the engine in and then I might feel like I'm actually bolting stuff together rather than taking everything apart!

The fuel pump was a problem because in 929's and RX-4s they are electric (to the best of my knowledge) and are mounted in the rear of the car near the tank. On the yellow parts car, there was a bracket that held the pump and filter, this bracket then bolted to another bracket that was welded to the floorpan of the car. On the green car, this bracket was missing. I could have either cut the bracket out of the yellow car and welded it to the green car, but there wasn't much room to weld, so I decided to make my own bracket.
(see above).

The end result was:

It's not perfect and I am still thinking of a way to secure it on one side, but the cover fits over it and with the pump and filter in place I can plug the pump into the factory loom.

Test fitting the cover:

Now the old sealant has started to crack off, so I may end up coating it in the stuff you brush on, just to stop any wayward rocks from breaking the plastic.

Oh and here's how hot it gets in the back of the wagon on a sunny day:

It's melted the plastic container for some plastic interior clips.

I've got to clean everything a little better and finish off the last bolt mounting point and I can bolt everything back together and re-install the diff.

The second thing that I put off for a while was the mess of wiring around the rear passenger tail light.
My brother and I followed the wires and colours using the owners manual wiring diagram. No idea what they were trying to do but there were joiner blocks and crappy low spec wires all over the place.

So I'd been putting off fixing this, which in turn meant I couldn't reassemble the interior. Anyway, it turns out, by using one of my spare lights off the parts car, we cut out all of the messy crap and were back to the factory loom and plug.

Spare on the left, original on the right. The other bonus was that my spare had an uncracked chrome surround (unlike the other one).

On Friday we're tidying up the other side and sorting the RX-4 lights in the tail gate and then we should be good to go and can start assembling the interior.

Other things to sort - suspension bushes, got some superpro ones and they don't fit, I finally got my extractors and they are very very average looking so I'll be fixing them somehow and when I get back from OS I'll order some dampners/shocks and I can get this thing on its on wheels and rolling again.

Finally got the fuel pump bolted and wired up. The cover just fits over the new hoses I've run.

I also refitted the diff, painted some more of the engine bay and started swapping over the headlight brackets, bumper, indicators and other bits and pieces from the parts car to the wagon.
My friend has also said that he'll swap/sell me the guards that are on the car, so that saves me from having to pull the ones off the front of the parts car and getting them painted. Now I've just got to get some bonnet hinges (as flat front and pointy front cars use different hinges) and fix the headlight wiring and I'll be set).

You can see the difference between a flat front bumper and a pointy front bumper.

When I was taking the flat front bumper off the parts car, I heard something clang on the bumper and then I heard a clatter as something hit the concrete driveway. My immediate reaction was "oh S#$t! I've broken something". When I saw what had dropped though, I started laughing.

It's a spare key that had been hidden behind the bumper in a magnetic storage box. Pretty neat hey?

I also test fitted the extactors and they fit! hurray! They got lost in the post service at work and the place selling them didn't seem to know what it was that I was ordering.

I also cut the pinion snubber out of the parts car and fitted it to the wagon

Parts car one is on the right. I couldn't undo the nuts holding it in place as they were sealed shut with spray on sealer.

I'd post more, but it is 36 degrees in the office today so I am going home for a few cold beers.

Got home last night and decided to fit the flat front bumper, headlight brackets and grille.
Ran into a problem, the fibreglass chin spoiler doesn't allow the flat front bumper to fit with the indicators bolted on.

I can either cut and modify the chin spoiler to fit around the indicators, but then it may look a bit awkward with the flat front.

OR

I can fit the flat front metal front apron that goes under the bumper, but then that will show the big jagged cuts to the front guard wheel arches that the previous owner has made to possibly run bigger tyres on the front.

Decisions decisions.

On a positive note, I got my brother to sort out the rear wiring last night so I can finally put the interior back together (or at least until I get the rear speakers and accessories charger plug wired up and fitted down the track).

Mad Max, I got it from a auto parts place that is meant to specialise in performance parts. They were pretty useless to deal with so I'd wont say who they were.

They are also very cheap and nasty looking headers, I'll tidy the port area up with a dremel I think.

Also, I was chewing the ear of a colleague at work and he suggested to cut the front fibreglass apron so that indicators fit, just to get the car on the road, then I can use the guards and metal apron off the parts car later on when they are painted up and ready. I think that's a good idea so I'll be aiming for that this weekend.